


Bodach

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose and Tommy - Bonus Material [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:13:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: A tale of robbed horses, borrowed cars, roast pork and the boogeyman.
Series: Rose and Tommy - Bonus Material [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602865
Comments: 57
Kudos: 71





	1. Vinegar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrelandForever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrelandForever/gifts).



> Tommy has been home for two months when this takes place - so Rosie is about five.  
> Thank you to IrelandForever for the inspiration and the spookiest lullaby of all time - I hope this finds your approval...it certainly is spiralling into something rather longer than expected :)

The lorry was a fuckin’ monster. It was so long they barely got it to turn the corner into Watery Lane, they took a chunk of the corner shop’s wall with them, truth be told. It was the sort of operation that’d have had Tommy sweating bullets a couple of years back; but that was before he’d seen more variations of true disaster than he cared to count. As it were, he simply tipped his cap to the outraged shop keeper, who was pelting the side of the lorry with bits of broken wall; and then, of course, when the poor sod realised just who was behind the wheel, his attitude turned round quick smart.  
  
Tommy had considered offering to pay for the damage, he really had, but once Mister Roberts was half-hanging into the cab, hands brace on either side of the driver’s side window – “Mister Shelby, I didn’t know…it’s no problem, of course it’s not, sir…” – it seemed wiser by a mile to ride this new current instead. Arthur and John were eyeballing Roberts something shocking, both waiting until the man was well out of sight – though probably still genuflecting with remorse and horror – until they burst their holes laughing.  
  
They pulled up outside number six and Tommy had scarcely killed the engine when Rosie came clambering up onto the bonnet.  
  
“Off,” he snapped.  
  
“Is this ours?” she shouted.  
  
“It’s running hot, is what it-“  
  
It was too late, course it was. Rosie, in an attempt to straddle to bonnet – a maneuver that forced her short legs into a near split – pressed her bar legs against the hot metal, shrieked in pain and fell backwards and out of sight. It brought Arthur and John nearly to tears, they were laughing so hard.  
Tommy swore and rested his forehead on the wheel for a second.  
  
“Bless her, the little terror,” Arthur wheezed.  
  
“Fuck off-“ Tommy growled, but even so, he couldn’t keep himself from shooting a slightly desperate glance towards John. John had four of these after all and he seemed to be managing them somehow.  
  
“Your kid, your problem,” John said, wiping his eyes.  
  
For a second, Tommy considered throwing the lorry in reverse and making a getaway. They’d been back in Birmingham for two months now, two fucking months. It’d been a busy two months, as well, but their efforts had paid off. It was known they were back, and back with a vengeance. Anyone who’d staked a claim on anything worth claiming in their absence – with five miles of Small Heath at the very least – had been persuaded to bugger the fuck off. It hadn’t been easy or pleasant, but it had been a damn sight more simple than working out what the bloody hell to do with Rosie.  
  
She’d been stalking him like a little panther from the moment he got home; but ever since he’d taken her on a horse a couple of weeks back…Christ, she was like his shadow. He’d given her a finger and she’d taken the hand.  
_  
Where you goin’? What’re you doin’? Can I come?_  
  
Every moment of every day; unless he managed to evade her. It made him feel like a bastard, tip toeing down the stairs in the wee hours for fear of waking her and finding her following him down the street; a thick, pathetic bastard, who couldn’t get his own kid to do as she was told and stay out of his way when he was busy. It made him feel like even more of a bastard when he saw John making for home with more sweets in his pockets than was decent; he could just imagine his brother throwing handfuls of lemon drops into his small flock of kids, like a man feeding his chooks at the end of the day. Tommy couldn’t bring himself to bring Rosie as much as an apple. It’d been bad enough that he’d taken her out on the horse, he’d raised her expectations. He’d given her ideas.  
  
He could hear a soft snuffling sound from somewhere near the front tires, sighed and opened the door.  
  
Rosie was sitting on the ground, examining an angry looking burn on her inner thigh. She frowned up at him, her eyes red. It took all he had not to wrap his arms round her.  
  
“Come on,” he said instead. “No bawlin’ allowed, eh?”  
  
“I’m not,” Rosie said croakily, sucking what sounded like a small pond of snot back up her nose.  
  
“That’ll teach you, won’t it?” Tommy said. “Cars get hot Rosie.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“ ‘cause of the engine.” Tommy lowered himself to a crouch beside her. “It sits under there –“ he patted the bonnet “- burns the fuel and generates heat.”  
  
Rosie sighed. Even from where he was sitting he could see a couple a fat, watery blisters forming on her leg.  
  
“Is it sore?”  
  
“No.” There was so much defiance in her voice it nearly made him smile.  
  
“Grand,” Tommy said. “Up you get then.”  
  
He watched her get to her feet unsteadily, feeling like a bastard once again; albeit a proud bastard with a warrior for a daughter. There was a rip in the elbow of her jumper and Tommy could see the bloody graze through the shredded wool.  
  
“Come on,” he said again, nodding for her to follow him.

#

Rose leaned beside the sink wearily, watching as Tommy rooted through the cabinets in search of the bloody vinegar. Pol was neat as anything, but she had very peculiar ideas when it came to appropriate storage for things; he came across two small handguns – one in the cutlery drawer and one behind a tin of oats – before he finally unearthed the vinegar from a shelf stacked with frying pans and playing cards.  
  
“Here we go…” he set the bottle on the table and Rosie’s face screwed up in dismay.  
  
“I’m orright…” She didn’t sound convincing at all; and even if she had been, the tiny beads of sweat breaking out over her nose and the way she was keeping her legs apart gave  
the pain away.  
  
“Come here.”  
  
He patted the table top.  
  
She didn’t move. Tommy didn’t remember himself as a five-year-old, not vividly, he didn’t know whether he’d been a particularly obedient child. However, he did distinctly remember that neither his father nor mother had been in the habit of repeating instructions.  
  
“You don’t have to,” Rose said with a tiny shudder, her eyes on the vinegar rather than himself.  
  
John, bloody John, all he had to do was stick his fingers in his mouth and whistle and his lot came scrambling like a pack of little dogs.  
  
“It’s got to be done,” Tommy said.  
  
“No, it doesn’t.”  
  
Oh, for fuck’s sake, where was Pol when she was needed? He should have just left Rosie to it and told Pol to see to the burn when she got in. There’d have been no arguments then; but now that he’d started it, he’d have to see it through.  
  
“Rose…” he said, putting as much menace into his voice as he could.  
  
Her eyes snapped away from the bottle and once she looked at him, it took her only a seconds before she groaned and started wringing her hands.  
  
“Why?” she asked.  
  
“ ‘cause you don’t want an infection,” he snapped. “Now, come here.”  
  
Rosie came towards him, making the four feet journey from sink to table seem like crossing the continent. His patience was wearing thin; he picked her up under her arms and sat her down on the table to safe time more than anything else.  
  
“What’s in-…infuck…in…”  
  
“Infection?” Tommy rolled Rosie’s dress up to get a look at the damage.  
  
“Yea.” She clamped her legs together, wincing.  
  
“Sit still, let me see and I’ll tell you,” he said.  
  
“Tell me first.”  
  
Fuck this. Tommy took hold of Rosie’s legs. She was surprisingly strong. Even with one hand on each knee, Tommy had a job getting them apart and as soon as he let go to reach for the bottle and the washcloth, she clamped them back together, crossing them for good measure.  
  
“Orright,” he snapped. “Suit yourself. But don’t come cryin’ to me when it goes septic and you can’t sleep at night for the pain.”  
  
Rosie frowned up at him suspiciously.  
  
“D’you know Rog Brooks from up the road?” Tommy asked.  
  
Rose nodded slowly. Everyone knew Rog Brooks, he’d been hopping up and down the street, in between the pub and the bridge he slept under, for as long as Tommy could remember.  
  
“He’s Father Christmas,” Rosie said suddenly. “He used to be.”  
  
Tommy was about to put her right, when something occurred to him.  
  
“You know about that, do you?”  
  
“Yea,” Rosie said. “James’ brother said.”  
  
“And did he tell you how come he’s only got the one leg, as well?”  
  
“Yea,” Rosie said with a shudder. “Fell of sled, so he did, and the rain deer run him over.”  
  
“Rubbish,” Tommy waved his hand dismissively.  
  
“Gordon said-“  
  
“Well, Gordon’s got the wrong end of it,” he interrupted. “What happened, see, was that long ago on Christmas eve, when he’d just started his rounds, he went down the wrong chimney. I forget whose house it was, somewhere up in Egbaston, anyway, they’d kept the fire going.”  
  
“Oh no!” Rose clapped her hands in front of her mouth.  
  
“I know,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “Who’d be stupid enough, eh? Leaving the fire blazing Christmas Eve…shockin’. Anyway. He felt it right away and he jumped back out, quick as anything, but a bit of ember got stuck on his trousers and charred him a good one. But it was so early in the night, he didn’t have time to stop and clean and dress the burn. Had to deliver presents, didn’t he. So, by the time he gets back home, he’s so knackered, he just falls asleep in amongst the reindeer in the stable and by next morning, what with all the hay and the muck in the stables, the burn on his leg’s a purple that’ll turn your stomach. And, worse, he can see the lines travelling up his leg.”  
  
“What lines?” Rose asked breathlessly.  
  
“See, if you leave a bad burn unattended,” Tommy went on, “and it gets dirty and _infected_ , it can poison your blood. That’s when you get little red lines travelling up from the wound. And then all you can do in cut it off above the highest line, if you can, and hope for the best.”  
  
Rosie stared. Then, very, very slowly, she uncrossed her legs. Tommy resisted the urge to punch the air.  
  
“Good choice,” he said, drenching the wash cloth with vinegar.  
  
Rosie flinched quite hard when he pressed the cloth onto the angry red welt, but she didn’t pull away. Tommy glanced up and saw her eyes watering, her jaw clenched, her gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling.  
  
“Orright?” he asked, feeling a blister pop under the cloth.  
  
Rose glared at him, a tear sliding down her face and growled from between gritted teeth:  
  
“An Indian brave knows no pain…”  
  
Jaysis fuck, how was a man supposed to deal with a child like this?  
  
“Are you laughin’?” Rosie sounded outraged.  
  
“No…no, I’m not…” Tommy bit the insides of his cheeks til he tasted blood and still he couldn’t get the grin off his face.  
  
“You’re horrible!”  
  
“I’m finished, is what I am,” he said croakily and tossed the cloth into the sink.  
  
Rosie crossed her arms and glowered like she was going for the world record. Tommy wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed.  
  
“I smell like fish and chips,” Rose announced out of the blue, her face still set in deep disapproval.  
  
Tommy actually snorted. Rosie’s face became positively distorted, like she was either going to start crying or about to cut him.  
  
“Will we get some?” he heard himself ask.  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“Come on.” Tommy moved towards the door. “Best to go early, before the oil spoils.”  
  
Rose’s mouth twitched and something sparked hungrily deep inside him.  
  
“Yea,” he said. “Try sayin’ that three times fast.”  
  
“Theoilspoilstheoilspoilths-“ Rosie shook her head in surrender.  
  
“Hopeless,” Tommy sighed, throwing his hands up. “First you fry yourself on the bloody motor and now you’ve your tongue all in knots…”  
  
“Fuck off,” Rosie giggled – and froze.  
  
Tommy did as well; his shoulders tensed for a moment in anticipation of a grown-up advancing to give Rosie a smack in the mouth...until he looked back at Rosie. Her eyes were torn between his face and her feet, she kept glancing up at him, chewing her lip furiously.  
  
He felt a flash of regret at the times he’d become snappy and impatient when she’d forgotten who he was; it was no fuckin’ surprise it’d taken her so long to remember he was her father, how could he expect it from her when he couldn’t even do it himself.  
  
He couldn’t let her talk to him like this, he couldn’t allow it, he had to command respect or-  
  
“Fuck off yourself.”  
  
Her mouth fell open, she couldn’t believe it. Neither could Tommy. It was as if he’d lost all bloody self-control.  
  
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly.  
  
Rosie was still staring, apparently rooted to the spot.  
  
“Not hungry?”  
  
“Starvin’,” she said slowly.  
  
“Orright then.”  
  
  


#

They ate their fish and chips under a bridge by the cut, two bridges over from where the former Father Christmas kept his camp.  
  
“So, is it ours?” Rosie asked through a mouthful of plaice.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The lorry.”  
  
“Nah,” Tommy said dismissively. “Borrowed it from the grocers.”  
  
“Can’t we keep it?”  
  
“Ah, Rosie,” he reached over and took another chip, “that motor’s shite. I’ll get us a proper car soon, eh?”  
  
“Why’d you lend it if it’s shite?” Rosie asked.  
  
“Need to collect a horse tomorrow.”  
  
Rose nodded, chewing thoughtfully.  
  
“Where from?” she asked after a while.  
  
“Wombourne.”  
  
“Can I come?”  
  
Like fuck she could…  
  
“Yea, orright.”  
  
  
  
  



	2. Mishaps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! Many real life things to do - which isn't all bad really. Hope you enjoy!

When Tommy woke up the next morning, the thought of having to bring Rosie along to Wombourne was enough to give him a headache. It was bad enough to have him reach for the pipe and box, like a fuckin’ baby fumbling for its mother’s tit; the shame was such that he put the pipe back down and nearly fled from the room. It wouldn’t do at any rate. He had to have his wits about him; he couldn’t have his head full of opium any more than he could have his hand full with Rosie.   
  
He’d tell her. He’d tell her not to come and if she had a cry about it, so be it. It was for the best.   
  
She was down in the kitchen, bouncing off the walls, drumming her hands on the table, a piece of bread between her grinning teeth. Finn was glaring at her from the other side of the table, gripping his knife like he was ready to stab her. Pol was leaning by the sink with a cup of tea and the face of a woman swiftly nearing the edge.  
  
“There’s me da now,” Rosie cheered through a mouthful of bread.   
  
“At bloody last…” Pol sighed.  
  
“Ask him!” Rosie was looking at Finn with the kind of shit eating grin that was bound to drive any self-respecting eleven-year-old mad. “Ask him now, go on.”  
  
“I will,” Finn growled.   
  
“Go on!” Rosie repeated.  
  
“I-“  
  
“Ask him, ask him, ask-“  
  
“Shut up-“  
  
“Finn!” Pol put her cup down as though it was a shot glass.  
  
“But-“  
  
“He’ll tell you I’m not lying,” Rosie sing-songed.  
  
“You _are_ ,” Finn roared.  
  
“Am not,” Rosie yelled back. “Ask him!”  
  
“You-“  
  
“Ask me what?” Tommy interrupted.  
  
Finn turned to him and pointed his knife accusingly at Rosie.   
  
“She says she’s goin’ today,” he said. “To Wombourne. She says you’re takin’ her. But Johnanarfur said I’m not allowed, they said it yesterday.”  
  
Polly rolled her eyes.  
  
“I’ve told him,” she said. “I’ve told him, Rosie’s got the wrong end of it, but he won’t hear it unless it comes from you.”  
  
“Ah, yea?” Something bristled inside him, he wasn’t sure what exactly.   
  
“You’re wrong,” Rosie said, giving Polly a solemn shake of the head.   
  
“She aint,” Finn said sharply. “Tell her, Tommy!”  
  
“She _is_ -“  
  
“Will you put a stop to this, Thomas?” Pol snapped.   
  
“Yea,” Finn said. “Rosie’s not goin’, is she, Tommy?”  
  
They were all looking at him now and Tommy couldn’t help but notice that Rosie’s confident smile was flickering a little. Pol and Finn though, they didn’t seem unsure of themselves at all. They were convinced, they were bloody certain, that there was no way he was bringing Rosie with him. It was out of the question, an impossible scenario. It was fair enough, it really was, he had no business bringing a little kid; but that Pol and Finn should both assume that he wouldn’t ever consider taking Rosie with him anywhere, it irked him.   
  
“Yea, she is.”  
  
Fuck it. He’d show them. He’d show them he could be the sort of father, who took his kid places. He’d show them and he’d show himself.  
  
“Told you!” Rose pounded the table with her fist.  
  
Finn jumped from his chair and stormed out, his face white with outrage.   
  
“Is this wise?” Pol asked quietly.   
  
“It’s orright,” Tommy said offhandedly, ignoring the gnawing suspicion that Polly was asking a rather good question. “What’s the worst that can happen, eh, Rosie?”

#

The boar came out of nowhere. Later, much later, Johnny Dogs would hazard a guess that it had been hidden behind the huge hay bales at the far end of the paddock; wherever the bloody thing had been, they hadn’t fucking seen it.  
  
They were all in the paddock – Johnny Dogs, Arthur, John and Tommy himself – Arthur and John keeping watch to alert them if anyone came down from either side of the road; Johnny Dogs and Tommy closing in on the horse. He was a jumpy boy, the bay stallion; seemed to know that something was up and uncertain whether the strangers bearing apples and length of rope were to be trusted.   
  
Ordinarily, Tommy would have sat up on the fence, waiting for the horse to come to him before casually opening the gate and walking it into the lorry; but they didn’t have the luxury of time, not today. They’d gotten stuck on the way – not once, not twice, but three fuckin’ times. It had been bloody ridiculous.   
  
They’d barely been out of Small Heath when they hit something hard and sharp, a nail or a bit of scrap metal, and wrecked the left front tire. It hadn’t been too bad, though, there’d been a warehouse not too far and Arthur and Johnny Dogs had either persuaded the foreman to hand over a spare wheel or nicked one, Tommy hadn’t asked.   
Then, about half-way, they’d turned a corner and barely managed to stop in time to avoid slamming into the flock of sheep blocking the road. There hadn’t been a shepherd in sight and the ewes didn’t give a fuck about the horn or any shouting. They didn’t even move particularly fast once John started firing into the air. Set them back a good hour, the sheep had.   
  
When they got stuck in a boggy bit of road about a mile from the paddock, Tommy had started to sweat. He hadn’t let it show, he didn’t think he had, but still. They’d pushed it out, the four of them; he’d let Rosie take the wheel to keep the motor steady. She’d taken it very seriously, concentrated so much she didn’t even laugh when Arthur lost his footing in the muck and went arse over tit, covering himself in filth.  
  
“Right,” Tommy told her when they’d finally pulled up by the side of the fence. “We’ll just rope our boy and then we’re off, eh?”  
  
“Who’s is he?”  
  
“He’ll be ours in a minute.”  
  
He’d been out of the car and over the fence before she had a chance to ask anything else; before he had time to ask himself whether or not it was worth explaining to her that   
they were robbing the horse. It didn’t matter, not so long as they were quick about it. The races at Wolverhampton were starting in a couple of hours, someone was bound to come to collect the horse sooner rather than later.   
  
So there he was, apple in hand, cooing to the beast-  
  
“Look out!” John roared and Tommy instinctively turned to see who was coming down the road.   
  
“Jaysis fuck,” Johnny Dogs shouted behind him and when Tommy wheeled around the boar was bearing down on them like a thing possessed.   
  
It was a huge bastard, moving at a pace that defied belief, charging them like fancied itself a bull.   
  
“Get the fuckin’ horse,” Arthur bellowed, one leg already over the fence.   
  
Tommy sprinted at the stallion, took it by surprise, got his hand into the mane and pulled himself up and over. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Johnny Dogs diving for the fence, John was laughing hysterically somewhere in the periphery.   
  
The gate was over to the left, but Tommy turned the stallion round and galloped for the far right of the paddock. He got his knees up and his feet locked and they took the   
fence with a leap that was nothing short of majestic. Tommy heard Johnny Dogs – or maybe Arthur – give a howl of appreciation and for a moment he felt as elated as a little lad taking his first ever hurdle on horseback. Like he was playing at cowboys and Indians.  
  
“D’you see that, Rosie?” he called out, turning to look over at the lorry, to search for Rose’s head behind the windshield; but his eyes snagged on something halfway between lorry and paddock and he froze.  
  
Rosie was running at full tilt towards the car, the boar hot on her tiny heels. The paddock gate was swinging silently on its well-oiled hinges. Why the fuck wasn’t she in the cab? Why the fuck was the gate open? What the fuck- Rose tripped.  
  
She hit the ground, scrambled to get up, looking frantically over her shoulder at the giant pig now only feet away – a shot rang out, the boar slammed into the ground, its snout brushing the tip of Rosie’s boot.   
  
Tommy dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and was around the paddock and leaping off before he’d even started breathing properly again. He skidded over the wet grass, dropped down next to Rose and grabbed her by the shoulder.  
  
“Orright?” he croaked.  
  
She was staring at the dead pig at her feet, her face white and freckled with a smattering of its blood.  
  
“Tommy-“ Arthur was next to them, his gun still in hand, “-is she…did I-“  
  
Rosie was breathing, she was fine, she was fuckin’ fine; Arthur hadn’t hit her, the bloody eejit, Christ Almighty…  
  
“Rosie?” Tommy was shaking her shoulder lightly, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off the boar. “Rose. Are you hurt?”  
  
Slowly, Rosie turned and gave him a wide-eyed shake of the head. Tommy tore his eyes away from her and glared at the men.  
  
“Who opened that fuckin’ gate?” he demanded.  
  
“I did…” Rose whispered.  
  
“Fuckin’ hell,” John muttered behind them.   
  
“Why?” Tommy asked.  
  
“So…so you could ride out?” Rose offered weakly.  
  
“Bloody kids-“ John started.  
  
“Will someone get the fuckin’ horse?” Tommy roared, suddenly furious.   
  
“Tom-“  
  
“Get the fuckin’ horse,” he repeated at top volume. “Get it on the fuckin’ tray and let’s fuckin’ go!”  
  
He could hear the horse neigh in protest behind him and Johnny Dogs growling incantations of tranquility. John jogged off towards the lorry, to get the back properly open; Arthur however, remained on his haunches next to Tommy and Rose, rubbing his free hand over his face.   
  
“I-“  
  
“It’s orright, Arthur,” Tommy said through gritted teeth. “No harm done, you did the right thing, eh?”  
  
“He’d have smashed’er…” Arthur mumbled.  
  
“I said it’s orright,” Tommy snapped. “Rosie’s grand, aren’t you, Rosie?”  
  
“Yea,” she whispered.   
  
“Good girl,” Tommy said with a deep exhale. “Come on, up you get. Are we set, boys?”  
  
“Locked and loaded,” John shouted from the back of the lorry.  
  
Rosie was still on the ground, her fingers dug into the soft earth. John and Johnny Dogs were coming back towards them now, wearing expressions half-way between annoyance and concern.  
  
“She orright, Tom?” John called.  
  
“Yea,” Tommy called back, before adding in a low voice: “Time to move, Rosie, go on.”  
  
“The pig, but,” she said shakily.  
  
Fuck almighty, this was just what he needed, for her to chuck a wobbly over a dead, deranged pig. But he’d brought it on himself, hadn’t he? Maybe all the disasters along the way had been signs, signs that he should drop Rosie by the road side and pick her up when the business was done…bloody hell, he sounded like Pol now.  
  
“What about it?” Arthur asked gruffly.  
  
Rosie frowned up at him, a bit of colour returning to her cheeks. She looked from Arthur to Tommy to John and Johnny Dogs, who were standing with them now, and back to   
Tommy.  
  
“Ain’t we takin’ him?” she asked.  
  
Tommy blinked. He hadn’t heard right, surely he hadn’t.  
  
“You want to bring that?” he asked.  
  
“ ‘course.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
Her stare became nothing short of incredulous, like he was the thickest human being she’d encountered in her life.  
  
“To eat it,” she said.   
  
There was a moment of stunned, disbelieving silence. Tommy could feel his shoulders shaking, something inside his chest breaking open. They roared, all of them; Rosie’s   
frown deepened.   
  
“What?” she snapped.  
  
Johnny Dogs reached past Tommy to ruffle Rosie’s already disheveled hair.   
  
“Proper head on this one,” he said. “No worries here, eh, Tom?”  
  
Rose looked over at Tommy uncertainly.   
  
“We’ll bring it, so?” she asked.   
  
It was ridiculous. No child had any business being this clever, especially not after doing something so stupid that Tommy’s mind was still boggling. She was due a hiding for getting out of the car, really, never mind opening the gate and nearly getting herself mauled. He ought to-  
  
“Stolen pig tastes best, you know?” Rosie said.  
  
“Not if you get caught, it ain’t,” Tommy growled, offering her a hand up and pulling her to her feet. “In the car you. And _you_ -“ he nodded to his brothers, who were still convulsing with merriment “-put our dinner with our new acquisition. Let’s go.”  
  
Jaysis. He’d be the death of himself if Rosie didn’t beat him to it.


	3. Camp

The horse kicked up an unholy racket when Tommy’s brothers made to put the dead pig in the back of the lorry.  
  
“Not used to this type of death,” Johnny Dogs announced.  
  
“Well, I fuckin’ am,” Arthur growled, wrenching the cab door open. “Give us a hand, John, our porky mate’s goin’ in front.”  
  
“Right you are,” John said cheerfully. “It’ll be a tight squeeze, mind.”  
  
Tommy, already behind the wheel, peering up the road and expecting a car to round the corner any second, lit a cigarette. They were useful to help you keep your mouth shut. Rose was holding onto the outside of the window, her toes barely touching the footboard, watching as they settled the pig on the seat.  
  
“It’s bleedin’ all over the place,” she said.  
  
She didn’t sound particularly bothered.  
  
“Would you like us to gut him right here, your majesty?” Arthur snapped, slightly out of breath.  
  
“I only-“  
  
“It’s not your problem at any rate,” Tommy interrupted. “Front seats for death and whoever’s used to it. Horses, kids and war-shy gypsy bastards in back. Off you go.”  
  
Rose’s brow creased a particular way that Tommy had come to know as a sure fire sign of an oncoming discussion, to put it mildly; but before she had a chance to start arguing, Johnny Dogs plucked her from the window.  
  
Rose’s voice drifted into the cab as Johnny Dogs carried her away.  
  
“It’ll kick us…”  
  
“Nah,” Johnny Dogs said calmly. “Bit of a _dijili_ and he’ll be right as rain.”  
  
“ _Tatcho_?”  
  
“ _‘va_. Now get on me back til we’re in front of him…”  
  
There was a bit of a commotion in the back of the lorry and a moment later Johnny Dogs banged on the divider. Tommy reached for the starter.  
  
“There’s a little side street, such as often you meet, where the boys on a Sunday night rally…”  
  
Rosie was singing to the horse, her voice high and scrappy and a little off key; it hit him somewhere deep inside and something shattered like a pane of glass, filling his guts with shards.  
  
“Tommy?”  
  
“…though it’s not very wide and it’s dismal beside, they call the place paradise alley…”  
  
“Tom-“ Arthur’s hand was on his shoulder “-let’s move, eh?”  
  
Tommy nodded, his chest was hurting, his hands would have been shaking if it hadn’t been for the steering wheel to hold onto.  
  
“…but a lassie so sweet, lives in that little street…”  
  
She’d not known a word when he left her behind, staring and silent in her grandmother’s arms; and now she knew all the words to a bloody song so old he remembered dancing to it. Fuck it. He pushed the starter and the rumble of the engine drowned out Rose’s song.

#

  
It took them a good few hours to make it into the woods around Clun where Johnny Dogs had left his wagon; long enough for Tommy to push aside all thoughts of things he’d missed, long enough for Arthur to drink the better part of the flask in his jacket pocket, long enough for John to become fidgety to the point of being insufferable; and, apparently, long enough for Johnny Dogs and Rose to become the best of mates.  
  
“Are we there already?” Rose groaned when Tommy opened the back of the lorry.  
  
“You’ve been in there for three bloody hours,” he said incredulously.  
  
“But he’s not told me the ending.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Not to worry Rosie-girl-“ Johnny Dogs emerged from behind the horse, carefully guiding it backwards “- I’ll tell it in a bit, eh? After I’ve cracked me back and had a piss, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“I mind!” Rose hopped out of the lorry after them, a huge grin on her face. “It’s too excitin’, piss later!”  
  
“The fuckin’ cheek…” Johnny Dogs shook his head and looked over at Tommy with a barely suppressed grin. “ ‘s the old man not taught you any manners?”  
  
“No,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “Pol has but. Can you please piss later? Just-”  
  
“Go fetch some fire wood, eh, Rosie?” Tommy interrupted.  
  
“But-“  
  
“But nothin’,” he said firmly. “Off you go, leave Johnny Dogs alone.”  
  
“But-“  
  
Tommy clapped his hands, hard, and Rose jumped as the clap rang out through the quiet clearing. It was a sound that reverberated through more childhood memories than Tommy cared to recall, giving notice that the tether was at an end and there’d be a proper slap in a minute; and now he’d crossed over to the other side without even thinking about it. It was ridiculous. And it worked.  
  
Rose rolled her eyes and made for the trees. Maybe it was a universally acknowledged signal; one that all children knew and all fathers used.  
  
“Be quick about it,” Johnny Dogs called after her. “The bodach goes after the slackers first.”  
  
“He does in his hole,” Rosie shouted back over her shoulder and disappeared into the undergrowth.  
  
“She’s grand, that one,” Johnny Dogs announced once Rose was out of earshot. He had tethered the bay on a tree with plenty of slack for him to walk around and have a graze.  
  
“A credit to the old man, eh?” Tommy said past the cigarette between his teeth, shielding the lighter from the breeze.  
  
Johnny Dogs gave him a look he didn’t care for at all and went to give John and Arthur a hand stringing up the boar.

#

The rest of the quickly fading daylight passed in that odd harmonious domesticity that came with making camp somewhere well off the road. The fire was built, the pig was gutted, logs and crates to sit on appeared by the fireside. Johnny Dogs brought out the whiskey and made a pot of tea to go with it; a good thing, too, it was getting chilly as the afternoon wore on. Raw pig fat was melting in a skillet, Arthur and Rosie were dispatched to the stream to scrub dirt of potatoes and their battle-worn selves; Tommy carved generous hunks off the hanging pig, John fed the fire…by the time the sun was fully gone the outside world had all but disappeared.  
  
Tommy watched Rosie from the other side of the fire, watched the flames dancing in her eyes as she stared into the fire as she listened to the end of Johnny Dogs’ story; and he remembered that feeling of being of being the only people alive in the world. It was a happy memory he supposed; nothing concrete, no pictures, nothing like that; just a vague recollection of deep contentment that ended once he became aware of what the adults around him were up to and on about. He’d loved a fire, Tommy, before he’d started keeping track of the state of the old man’s bottle; once he’d been old enough to start trying to predict when the point of no return was reached and everything would go to shit, fires had become occasions fraught with worry.  
  
Rosie though, she wasn’t keeping an eye on him. She was deep inside whatever tall tale Johnny Dogs was spinning for her; apart from when her eyes strayed towards the skilled and her nostrils flared with interest. She wasn’t worried, his Rosie, about what might happen later on in the night; she’d nothing but adventure ahead of her. Adventure and a dinner that tasted of adventures passed. Tommy brought his glass to his lips and was surprised to find it empty. He held it out towards Arthur, who was nursing the bottle, his back settled against a large log, and his brother obliged wordlessly.  
  
“…next morning,” Johnny Dogs’ voice drifted through the glow of the flames, “the bed’s empty, sheets crumpled up and pulled half off the mattress.”  
  
Rose was no longer staring into the fire, she was hanging onto Johnny Dogs’ every word.  
  
“Was she gone?” she asked.  
  
“Without a bloody trace,” Johnny Dogs said gravely.  
  
“Forever?”  
  
“Well, depends who you ask, Rosie-girl.” Tommy watched Johnny Dogs leaned forwards to turn over the contents of the skillet, shrugging, every move timed to theatrical perfection. “We never saw her again, the rest of us. But me ma, see, she swears that sometimes, when we’d be round the border and she’d go down to the stream first thing in the morning, she’d hear our Mary singing just on the other side of the trees.”  
  
If Rose’s eyes had gotten any bigger, they’d have fallen out. It hurt as much as it made him want to smile.  
  
“Not happy songs, mind,” Johnny Dogs went on. “Sort of songs that’d tear your heart in two if you stopped to listen long enough. And that-“ he took the skillet off the fire and walked over to the bowls lining the step of the vardo “- was that. We went on and we went round and Mary just wasn’t there anymore.”  
  
He went to serve up the grub and Rosie’s small form was left at the other side of the flames. Tommy watched her frown and chew her lip and then she looked up and at him so suddenly, with such genuine fear in her eyes, it knocked him sideways a bit.  
  
She looked so small suddenly, so small and alone, that Tommy’s head jerked in a gesture to call her over completely on its own accord.  
  
Rose was up and around the fire in a flash but then stopped a little awkwardly a step or two from Tommy’s crate. He watched her fidget for a moment, shooting him uncertain glances, looking as unsure of how to proceed as he was. Tommy shifted a little, making a space for her on the lid and she sat down quickly, as if she was afraid he’d change his mind.  
  
“Orright?” he asked.  
  
“Johnny Dogs’ sister got taken by the bodach,” Rosie said hoarsely. “ ‘cause she wouldn’t go with the other girls to do the washing.”  
  
“Ah, yea?” All the bravado she'd shown when she went off to get the kindling had been scattered now that the woods looked dark and deep, Tommy didn't miss her eyes darting off into the blackness with unmistakable worry.  
  
“An’ they kept telling her that he’d come,” Rosie went on, “Johnny Dogs’ ma and them, but she didn’t believe it. Just laughed at them and kept on going swimming when she should’ve not been…”  
  
Tommy felt Rosie shiver beside him. She was so close it shook the fabric of his jacket sleeve.  
  
“And then she was gone. Forever.”  
  
What was a man supposed to say to a child for whom the comfort of the woods had just turned to a darkness filled with monsters? There had to be words to light the way. Things to say that would melt away the fear.  
  
“Well, best do as your told then and make yourself useful.” He nudged Rosie with his elbow, nodded towards the vardo, caught sight of the glass in his hand and noticed it was once again empty. “Bring us over a bowl of that, eh, Rosie?”  
  
There had to be words to light the way. Tommy just didn’t knew what the fuck they were. He watched Rosie walk to get him his dinner, watched her shooting nervous glances towards the darkness between the trees, and told himself the gnawing inside him was nothing that couldn’t be solved by a plateful of stolen pig.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parenting is a total head-fuck...and to imagine how Tommy might experience it is one something that gives me unreasonable kicks. Let me know what you reckon - would love to hear your perspectives on this. xx


	4. "If you want the Sergeant Major..."

The moon was up, a perfect Cheshire cat smile above the tree tops, the fire had burned down to a smoldering mass of orange, the bowls were long empty and the bottle as well; and Tommy, although reluctant to admit it to himself, was far drunker than he’d any business being. He might have blamed the fire or the food or Arthur refilling him without his say-so; but in the end it didn’t really matter. His head was swimming, his face hot, his daughter far away on the log with Arthur. He’d known what to say about the bodach, Arthur of all fuckin’ people.  
  
“See this, Rosie?” He’d pulled his shooter out and put it on the log. “Let the fucker come, eh? I’ll do him in like I did in that one.”   
  
He’d nodded towards his bowl and shoved a chunk of pork between his teeth for emphasis.   
  
So now, Rosie was wedged between his legs, watching him spin a coin between his fingers. It was a blur that coin; and it the orange glow of the embers it looked almost as though Arthur was holding a tiny sun. He’d done that with Finn, Arthur, he’d sat with him and spun and spun and spun that bloody coin in front of the fire place until their little brother got drowsy and slipped off to sleep on the rug.   
  
“If you want the Sergeant…” the rumble of Arthur’s voice bounced off the spinning sun in his hands and drifted towards Tommy “…I know where he is, I know where he is…”  
  
“Ah, bloody hell, Arthur-“ he started thickly, but John came stumbling out of the trees, still doing up his fly, joined in and drowned him out.  
  
“He’d lyin’ on the canteen floor – I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him – lyin’ on the canteen floor…”  
  
Rosie wrenched her eyes off the coin, turned and craned her head to see where John was; Tommy could see a dark smudge on the side of her neck. Soot from the fire, dirt from the ground, blood from the pig…dark against her pale skin, pale as his own. Greta, she’d gone dark at the first sign of the sun, the colour of freshly fried bread, smooth and brown like a hot stone by the side of a stream…  
  
( _-You’d pass for a gypsy queen…  
  
She opened one eye and the laughter of a thousand women sparkled up at him.  
  
-They’d write songs about you, about the dark beauty wandering the hills…  
  
-Ah yea?   
  
She propped herself up on her elbow, grinning.   
  
-Yea.  
  
-What about you?  
  
-What about me?  
  
-Will there be songs ‘bout you? About us?   
  
-Maybe…  
  
-About how the wild gypsy queen came through town and stole away the fairest of the men?   
  
-Hang on-  
  
-How she took him to be her sweet English rose?  
  
-English…what?   
  
She laughed, started singing.  
  
-Oh, as the driven snow so was the face of Tommy She-e-lby…  
  
-Ah, fuck off, Greta…  
  
-…and though the sun might leave a kiss upon his cheek so fair-  
_

 _He rolled over and shut her up with a kiss of his own._ )  
  
Perhaps Rosie did turn dark, too, he wasn’t to know. He’d never seen her in the summer; not since she’d been tiny.   
  
“If you want the Sergeant Major, I know where he is…”  
  
He pushed himself up to his feet, stood swaying, lit a cigarette slowly and carefully, giving himself time to find his balance.   
  
“If you want the Sergeant Major,” he announced into the increasingly raucous rendition over on the log, “he’ll be in the woods havin’ a piss.”  
  
“Have a nice time,” Johnny Dogs said drily.   
  
Arthur and John – and Rosie, she’d picked up the tune by now as well – didn’t pause to look at him, they were having too good a time; drumming on the log, clapping, the lot.   
  
She’d remember this, Rosie, she’d have some dark and humming memory of singing by the fire with her uncles. If he got lucky, it would blur over time and she’d have him there with them, singing along and howling at the moon, these things happened. Tommy lurched off towards the trees.   
  
“Be careful…” a small voice called after him.  
  
He might make that the real memory, he’d to do no more than sit down beside them and move his lips in silence, it’d be enough. He’d give that a go, maybe; walk off the worst of the drink and then return to them. Return to her. To Rosie.  
  
Fuck, it was cold but away from the fire. And dark as a bear’s arsehole. A fine night for the bodach indeed.

#

  
Halfway up a hillside, where the trees were sparse and the grass crunchy beginnings of night frost, it occurred to Tommy that he could just keep going. By the time they’d realise he’d not come back, they’d be too drunk to look for him; and by the time they’d sobered up enough to give chase, he’d be long gone. He’d be in fuckin’ Wales if he applied himself – and shoveling coal in a boiler room, paying his passage to America by breaking his back, by Wednesday.   
  
She’d remember him, Rosie, she’d remember him in the same way Finn remembered their old man; a passing presence, menacing and intriguing at once. Someone with an aura of importance, someone who should have mattered greatly and ended up not mattering at all. Finn didn’t seem angry at the old man, he didn’t seem upset by his absence; he certainly never mentioned it if he missed him.   
  
It wasn’t as if he was all that Rosie had left in the world, though bleeding heart types might have said so -   
  
(In fact, Tommy had said so himself, years ago, full to the roots of his hair with loot from a wine cellar hidden under an unassuming farmhouse somewhere in the east of France. Said it to a girl.  
 _  
I’ve a daughter…it’s just her and me…I’m all she’s left in the world.  
  
_ She’d ridden him senseless, the girl, absolutely senseless. There was nothing like a sob story…)  
\- but it would have been a lie, it had been and it was now. Rosie was his, true, but she was just as much everyone else’s.   
  
It’d be different for Finn of course, this time round. He’d forever remember Tommy buggering off on them at a time like this, when it was his proper time to take the helm and turn this shite around. The same white-hot anger that used to sear Tommy’s own insides whenever he thought about the old man, charred the heart out of him that rage, right up until he ceased giving a fuck. True, he wasn’t Finn’s father; but he might as well have been, he’d been more of a father to the poor little bastard than he’d been to Rose. True, they’d still have Arthur and John; but really, they were about as much use now as they’d been when they were kids.   
  
Either way. It couldn’t be done.   
  
Tommy turned and started down the hill back into the pitch-black of the woods.   
  
( _-Are you like a cat?  
  
-Am I like a cat how?  
  
-Can you see in the dark?  
  
-No.  
  
-You’ve huge eyes but.  
  
-I can’t see in the dark, Rosie.  
  
-It’d be handy.)  
  
_“No arguments there,” Tommy muttered through gritted teeth and promptly lost his footing.  
  
He slid down a few yards, rocks and roots ripping into his trousers. It sobered him up, a bit at least. Enough to realise that there were calls ringing through the distant dark ahead. They were bellowing, howling to the moon. Arthur and John and Johnny Dogs.  
  
“Rosie!”  
  
Like the roar of an exploding shell when you’d just drifted off to sleep. His heart was pumping so hard it hurt.  
  
“Ro-sie!”  
  
Tommy was on his feet, sprinting, branches tearing at his face and his jacket. They were spreading out, the sound of Johnny Dogs and Arthur growing further apart. He could see every tree now, Tommy, he could see every root; perhaps was like a cat after all.   
  
“Rosie!” He felt the pain in his throat before he realised he had joined in the yelling. “Rosie!”  
  
If there’d been ever been a time to wish for being the type of father whose children came when he called, this was it.


	5. Prayers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The showdown! Hope you enjoy - and don't be shy to share your reactions, they tend to make my day :)

“Ro-sie!”  
  
John was up ahead of Tommy, hands cupped around his mouth, shouting into the darkness. He jumped when Tommy came crashing through the bushes, nearly decked him when he grabbed onto him, skidding to a stop.  
  
“Jaysis fuck, Tommy-“  
  
“Where is she?” he panted.  
  
John raised his eyebrows, rubbed the back of his neck.  
  
“D’you think I’d be yellin’ like this if I-“  
  
Tommy grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him so close their noses were nearly touching.  
  
“Where. Is. She?” he ground out, his jaw so tight he thought he felt his back teeth cracking.  
  
John wrapped a hand round Tommy’s wrist and tried to pry him off.  
  
“She’s wandered off,” he said.  
  
For a moment Tommy stared into his brother’s glazed eyes, first baffled by the absolute lack of panic in them, then incensed by it.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because-“ John wrenched himself free, took a step back and straightened his shirt front “-she’s five fuckin’ years old.”  
  
“You-“  
  
“Little kids wander, Tommy,” John cut him off. “Our Katie walked off at the Bullring, ages ago, took Martha four fuckin’ hours to find her again. Probably went lookin’ for faeries  
or some shite.”  
  
He was so matter-of-fact about it, John, it left Tommy speechless for the better part of a heartbeat.  
  
“So, what the fuck do we do?” he snapped.  
  
“Have a look round,” John said wearily. “Arthur’s gone towards the road, Johnny’s going to the water-“  
  
There was a lake over in the woods towards the south, Tommy groaned as the realization hit him. Images of Rosie’s lifeless form, floating in the moonlight, swollen with muddy water, came slamming into him, as hard to force down as a waterlogged corpse itself.  
  
“Keep your hair on-“  
  
“Fuck off…” Tommy turned on his brother, every inch of his skin blazing with rage. “Why the fuck didn’t you keep an eye-“  
  
“ ‘cause she said she was only goin’ for a bloody piss,” John cut him off, equally furious. “ _You_ wanted to bring her, when she’s no business comin’ along…so…don’t you fuckin’  
dare put this on us now, Tom.”  
  
“If anything…” Something odd was happening to his throat, it was ceasing up, the fucker, the way it’d done down in the tunnels once or twice, when the dirt was raining down on them and the beams were groaning under the weight of the fighting above. “Anything…John…I’ll fuckin’…”  
  
“So go and fuckin’ look for her,” John shouted, taking a step forward now. “I’m goin’ back to the fire- fuck off, Tommy-“  
  
Tommy had him by the shirt again, his fist raised.  
  
“In case she comes back,” John roared at him. “In case she fuckin’ come back.”  
  
Tommy shoved him, hard, hard enough to have him stumble into a tree.  
  
“You do that,” he hissed and took off into the dark.

#

  
He should have been calling out for her, he knew, but his body wouldn’t obey him anymore, not beyond doing him the basic service of moving forward. The moon kept disappearing, plunging him into almost completely pitch-black. He strained to hear anything over his hammering heart and ragged breathing. There were flutters above him once in a while, when he startled an owl or some other night time bird of prey; some scuttling in the leaves on the ground here and there. No sign of her, no sound of her.  
  
Tommy leapt over a log, nearly fell and stumbled out into a clearing by the edge of the lake.  
  
It was black and smooth and deep looking and there was no sign of Rosie at all. She could have gone anywhere, they’d fuck all chance of finding her; she’d have come if she was close enough to hear them….Jaysis fuck, she’d been terrified of what might be lurking in the woods a couple of hours ago, she wouldn’t have walked in there deliberately. She’d gone far enough to be out of sight, lost her bearings and gotten lost. She’d be stumbling through the woods somewhere, blind with panic, face scratched to fuck from running into branches, the bodach in the rustle of every leaf…  
  
He was having a heart attack. There wasn’t any air left. He was going to fuckin’ die.  
  
He stumbled onto the rocky shore, leaned against a huge boulder, stretched himself, forced himself to breathe past the seal of sheer terror.  
  
Two months. Two fuckin’ months.  
Pol had kept Rosie alive and well for four years while there was a fuckin’ war on and it’d taken him exactly eight weeks to lose her. Lose her in the fuckin’ woods, while he was drunk and wandering, wondering how his time might be better spent…for a moment Tommy thought he might be sick.  
  
( _-What’s it like?  
_  
_They were smoking by the back gate, Tommy and John, watching Greta and Martha cooing over John-the-Second. He was tiny, weeks old.  
  
-What’s what like?  
  
-Havin’ a kid.  
  
Greta took John-the-Second and rested him on her swollen tits, his feet braced limply against her growing stomach.  
  
-I don’t bloody know, Tom... It’s like when Finn was a snapper.  
  
-Come on…  
  
John looked at him strangely, like he was ready to tell him to fuck off; but then he broke out into a sideways grin.  
  
-You’re nervous.  
  
-Ah, now-  
  
-You’re shiteing it.  
  
Tommy blew smoke across the lane and listened to Greta humming. He didn’t recognise it, it might have been a lullaby from the old country. John’s hand was on his shoulder.  
  
-Look on the bright side, brother. At least you can’t fuck up worse than the old man, eh?_)  
  
Yea. Like fuck he could not…  
  
No. Fuck it.  
  
Tommy braced his hands against the boulder, pushed off and was surprised to find his legs steady. He’d find her. She was five years old; how far could she’ve made it? Even if  
she’d walked in a straight line – and he legitimately doubted that she had – she’d have gotten too tired and too scared at some point to keep moving.  
It felt as though he’d been searching and running for the better part of an hour; yet when he checked his watch (it only now occurred to him that this might be a wise thing to do), he found it had been barely fifteen minutes.  
  
It was orright. He’d find her.  
  
He stood facing the unforgiving tree line, hauled a breath in and was about to roar her name so it’d be heard all the way to Birmingham…when there was a rustle and a parting of the shrubs and into the moonlight of the lake shore stepped Rosie.  
  
The relief came so suddenly it nearly took Tommy’s feet out from under him. The shout he’d worked up to flew from him in an exhale so long and deep it seemed to move the trees. It left him empty and doubled over, his hands braced on his knees. Jesus, Mary and fuckin’ Joseph…  
  
“Da?” Rosie whispered.  
  
“Yes, Rosie?” Tommy wheezed.  
  
“Come…”

He looked up through the hair falling all over the place, looked at Rosie scanning the lake and the tree line with huge eyes, her jaw set and her hands clamped around a stick as thick as a man’s arm.  
  
“Come on,” Rose repeated tensely. “Co-“  
  
“Comin’…” Tommy straightened up and took a step towards her.  
  
Something strange came over Rosie’s face, something dark and disturbing, her eyes lit up with fear and her hands tightened around her useless weapon.  
  
“Say a Hail Mary,” she commanded shakily.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Say it!”  
  
She raised her stick like it was an axe, like she was about to cut him limb from limb. The surge of anger surprised him as much as the relief had a moment ago. The fuckin’ nerve of her. She looked for all intents and purposes set to hit him – Jaysis, if he’d dared anything of the kind, his old man would have broken that stick over his back no matter how long it took him.  
  
“Come here-“ Tommy started.  
  
“No,” Rosie was shaking, he could see it in the pale light of the moon.  
  
He reached for her, she took a step back, raised the stick further still.  
  
“Please, say it,” she croaked.  
  
“I’ll fuckin’-“  
  
Rosie spun around and darted away from him, through the shrubs and back into the dark.  
  
“Rosie?” Tommy roared. “Come here, Rose!”  
  
Even waited like an eejit, for a second or two, as though he’d ever believed she’d come, before racing into the forest after her.

#

He could hear her ahead of him, twigs snapping under her feet, her club thumping a tree in passing; but he’d to stop running himself to do it. And she was fast, Rosie, she was flying through the dark.  
  
“Rosie?” He thought he saw her, a flash between the trees in front, and sped up. “Stop running!”  
  
He halted again, strained his ears, heard another crack and another thump and then a high-pitched scream that sent him running. You’d be glad to have a horse off at a shot like that.  
  
Tommy side-stepped a giant tree trunk and nearly fell over Johnny Dogs and Rosie, both crouched on the ground. He’d his hand on the back of Rose’s neck, Johnny Dogs did, his forehead to hers, mumbling away.  
  
“…pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, amen.”  
  
“What the fuck is goin’ on?” Tommy panted, much louder and much harsher than intended.  
  
Rosie’s head snapped up, her eyes nearly bulged with terror at the sight of him, and screamed again. It was like trodding on a cat on your way down the stairs. It’d have shattered glass.  
  
Rosie was scrambling for shelter behind Johnny Dogs, was climbing him like a tree.  
  
“Jaysis-“ Johnny Dogs was grabbing for her, trying to get her off his back. “It’s your da, Rosie-girl, keep your-“  
  
“It ain’t,” Rosie shouted, digging her nails into Johnny Dogs shoulder, hanging on like a frenzied rat.  
  
“Rose-“  
  
“He wouldn’t say it,” she shrieked. “He couldn’t!”  
  
“Ah, for fuck’s sake…” Johnny Dogs, turned to Tommy and – just as the clouds above them parted and allowed to moon to witness the whole bloody circus below – gave him an  
exasperated stare. “Say Hail Mary, Tom.”  
  
They’d gone mad, the both of them. Christ himself had appeared to them in the back of the van, most likely. Rosie and Johnny Dogs – two people who’d fuck all in common save the fact that neither would enter a church unless forced at fuckin’ gunpoint – had been taken over by some perverse religious fervor.  
  
Rosie was hyperventilating on Johnny Dogs’ back, breathing so hard he could feel it five feet away.  
  
“Hail Mary, full of Grace-“ Tommy started.  
  
“That’ll do,” Johnny Dogs cut him off. “See, Rosie-girl? Now get off, you’re rippin’ me shirt to shreds.”  
  
Rose slid to the ground, looking a bit unsteady on her feet.  
  
“What…” Tommy looked from Johnny Dogs to Rose and back again.  
  
“The bodach can’t say prayers,” Johnny Dogs said. “Goes up in flames when he-“  
  
“I seen him,” Rosie whispered. “By the water…”  
  
Understanding slammed into Tommy with such unrelenting force, it was like being kicked by a horse.  
  
“ _Tatcho?_ ” Johnny Dogs asked, winking at Tommy over Rosie’s head.  
  
She was staring off through the trees as though she was trying to spot the lake again.  
  
“He looked like me da…” Tommy had to lean forward to hear her, even though she was right there.  
  
“Maybe it was your da,” Johnny Dogs said. “Haven’t thought of that, have you?”  
  
“It-“ Rosie broke off and stared up at Tommy, the tiniest hint of a frown between her thin, straight eyebrows. “Was it you? By the water?”  
  
Standing up was suddenly near impossible. Tommy sank down on his haunches, one hand on a tree trunk to keep steady. He was level with Rose now, her flickering eyes, her fluttering nostrils, all of her right there. Unharmed.  
  
“Weren’t me,” Tommy said quietly.  
  
There was a huff as Johnny Dogs turned and marched off towards the camp; and a sigh of relief from Rosie.  
  
She’d been scared of him. Fuckin’ terrified. Because she’d seen, hadn’t she, she’d seen that flare of rage, his own father coming out to haunt her even though she’d never even  
met him. Better to believe the bodach was alive and well in the woods, than to know he was going in and out under your roof.  
  
“I knew that…” Rosie took a shaky step towards him. “I knew that. He was just like you but. And then I did the test. And he got mad, so I ran off.”  
  
“For a fact?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
He wanted to reach over and take her hand. Pull her into his arms. Kiss her hair. But it was like his arms and hands didn’t know what to do. An owl called out in the distance.  
  
“Rosie?”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“What were you doin’?” She cocked her head at him, confused. “What were you doin’ running round the woods in the dead of night?”  
  
Rosie’s frown deepened, it made a man feel thick as a brick wall.  
  
“Lookin’ for you,” she said.  
  
There was a lump in his throat the size of a small girl’s fist.  
  
“Why?” he managed.  
  
“ ‘cause of the bodach…” Rosie’s voice trailed off and she looked at him with sudden alarm. “Are you annoyed?”  
  
Deafened by the sound of the last of his heart breaking was what he was.  
  
“No.” Tommy was both pleased and surprised his voice wasn’t shaking. “I’m not. That was well done, my little love.”  
  
The grin was instantaneous; miraculous as it rose over the set, worries plane of her small face, bathing it in the memory of her mother. It called for action, for a grand gesture; but there was nothing big enough that Tommy knew to befit the hurt and the joy of the occasion.  
  
He straightened his legs, grunting like an old fella.  
  
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go find the fire, eh?”  
  
He turned, took a step and nearly jumped out of his skin when Rosie slid her hand into his.  
  
“Why’d he get so angry?” Rosie asked.  
  
“The bodach?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
“ ‘cause you found him out,” Tommy said. “ ‘cause you were smarter than him.”  
  
“For a fact?”  
  
“For a fuckin’ fact, Rosie.”  
  
He closed his own hand around hers as though it was a sparrow’s egg, every nerve in his hand singing, and set off. Headed for the dying glow of the cooling fire, hand in hand with his daughter.


End file.
